NRF5340 Simultaneous multi image dfu. Only Appcore image is updated

[tomas_mjp]

Hello!

I'm trying to add simultaneus multi-image DFU to my custom nRF5340 board (nRF Connect SDK v2.6.0) but I can't update the network core, only the appcore is updating.

This is what I have done so far:

1. Create a multi-image binary using
   

   python .\dfu_multi_image_tool.py create --image 0 \build\zephyr\app_update.bin --image 1 \build\centralNetworkCore\zephyr\zephyr.bin dfu_multi_image.bin

2. Send the multi-image binary file to the application core using a custom protocol
3. Process the multi-image binary using DFU Multi Image library
4. Write both images to their respective secondary partition (on external flash) using DFU Target library
5. Restart the device

This is working fine as you can see from this log

The problem is that only the application core is getting updated

It's like MCUboot detects that there is a new image on index 1 (network core) but ignore it.

I've been using this un-official example from Sigurd Hellesvik 

This is my partition table (Memory report):

flash_primary0x00000000 - 0x000fffff
Address	End	Partition	Size	Size (hex)
0x00000000	0x0000ffff	mcuboot	64.00 kB	0x10000
0x00010000	0x00083fff	mcuboot_primary	464.00 kB	0x74000
0x00010000	0x000101ff	└  mcuboot_pad	512 bytes	0x200
0x00010200	0x00083fff	└  mcuboot_primary_app	463.50 kB	0x73e00
0x00010200	0x00083fff	└  app	463.50 kB	0x73e00
0x00084000	0x000fffff	EMPTY_0	496.00 kB	0x7c000
external_flash0x00000000 - 0x01ffffff
Address	End	Partition	Size	Size (hex)
0x00000000	0x00073fff	mcuboot_secondary	464.00 kB	0x74000
0x00074000	0x000b3fff	mcuboot_secondary_1	256.00 kB	0x40000
0x000b4000	0x010b3fff	littlefs_storage	16.00 MB	0x1000000
0x010b4000	0x01ffffff	free_storage	15.30 MB	0xf4c000
0x02000000	0x01ffffff	└  external_flash	0 bytes	0x0
ram_flash0x00000000 - 0x0003ffff
Address	End	Partition	Size	Size (hex)
0x00000000	0x0003ffff	mcuboot_primary_1	256.00 kB	0x40000
0x00040000	0x0003ffff	ram_flash	0 bytes	0x0
sram_primary0x20000000 - 0x2007ffff
Address	End	Partition	Size	Size (hex)
0x20000000	0x20000fff	shared_sram	4.00 kB	0x1000
0x20001000	0x2005efff	sram_primary	376.00 kB	0x5e000
0x2005f000	0x2006efff	rpmsg_nrf53_sram	64.00 kB	0x10000
0x2006f000	0x20070fff	pcd_sram	8.00 kB	0x2000
0x20071000	0x2007ffff	networkCore_sram	60.00 kB	0xf000
otp0x00ff8100 - 0x00ff83fb
Address	End	Partition	Size	Size (hex)
0x00ff8100	0x00ff83fb	otp	764 bytes	0x2fc

This is my application prj.conf:

#
# Main configurations
#

CONFIG_MAIN_STACK_SIZE=8092
CONFIG_THREAD_NAME=y

# CPP and C
CONFIG_CPP=y
CONFIG_STD_CPP14=y
CONFIG_NEWLIB_LIBC=y
CONFIG_NEWLIB_LIBC_FLOAT_PRINTF=y

# DBG optimization
CONFIG_DEBUG_OPTIMIZATIONS=n
CONFIG_SPEED_OPTIMIZATIONS=y
CONFIG_THREAD_CUSTOM_DATA=y

# Some command handlers require a large stack.
CONFIG_SYSTEM_WORKQUEUE_STACK_SIZE=4096
CONFIG_HEAP_MEM_POOL_SIZE=4096

# Bigger ISR stack size required for audio.c/audioProcessBlock() local buffers
#   STACK_AUDIO_BACKGROUND_THREAD does not solve this given audioProcessBlock()
#   is called from an ISR context. Default 2048 is not enough.
CONFIG_ISR_STACK_SIZE=6144

#
# NetworkCore 
#

# Enable netcore
CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_CPUNET=y
CONFIG_PARTITION_MANAGER_ENABLED=y
CONFIG_NCS_SAMPLE_EMPTY_NET_CORE_CHILD_IMAGE=n
CONFIG_INCLUDE_NET_CORE_IMAGE=y

# The following configurations are required to support simultaneous multi image update
# Netcore upgrade
CONFIG_PCD_APP=y
CONFIG_NRF53_UPGRADE_NETWORK_CORE=y
CONFIG_UPDATEABLE_IMAGE_NUMBER=2
CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=y
CONFIG_ADD_MCUBOOT_MEDIATE_SIM_FLASH_DTS=y

#
# MCUMGR
# 

# Enable mcumgr
CONFIG_NET_BUF=y
CONFIG_ZCBOR=y
CONFIG_MCUMGR=y		

# Ensure an MCUboot-compatible binary is generated
CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT=y

# Enable most core commands
CONFIG_STREAM_FLASH_ERASE=y
CONFIG_STREAM_FLASH=y
CONFIG_IMG_MANAGER=y	

#
# USB
#

CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_STACK=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PRODUCT="Constellation"
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER="MJP audio designs"
CONFIG_USB_COMPOSITE_DEVICE=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_VID=0x20b1
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PID=0x0401

#
# SPI
#
CONFIG_NRFX_SPIS1=y

#
# UART
#

CONFIG_UART_USE_RUNTIME_CONFIGURE=y
CONFIG_NRF53_SYNC_RTC=n
CONFIG_LOG_PRINTK=n 
CONFIG_RING_BUFFER=y
CONFIG_UART_INTERRUPT_DRIVEN=y
CONFIG_UART_LINE_CTRL=y
CONFIG_PM_DEVICE=y
CONFIG_UART_2_INTERRUPT_DRIVEN=n
CONFIG_UART_ASYNC_API=y
CONFIG_UART_2_ASYNC=y

# LOG subsystem related configs
CONFIG_USB_DRIVER_LOG_LEVEL_ERR=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_LOG_LEVEL_ERR=y

#
# CODECS
#

# I2C configuration
CONFIG_I2C=y

# Enable I2S
CONFIG_NRFX_I2S0=y

# Cache
CONFIG_NRF_ENABLE_CACHE=y

# DSP
CONFIG_FPU=y
CONFIG_CMSIS_DSP=y
CONFIG_CMSIS_DSP_ROUNDING=y

#
# QSPI flash
#

CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR=y
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR_FLASH_LAYOUT_PAGE_SIZE=4096
CONFIG_FLASH=y
CONFIG_FLASH_MAP=y
CONFIG_FLASH_PAGE_LAYOUT=y
CONFIG_MPU_ALLOW_FLASH_WRITE=y

#
# LittleFS
#

CONFIG_FILE_SYSTEM=y
CONFIG_FILE_SYSTEM_LITTLEFS=y
CONFIG_FS_LITTLEFS_CACHE_SIZE=128
CONFIG_FS_LITTLEFS_LOOKAHEAD_SIZE=128

CONFIG_DFU_MULTI_IMAGE=y
CONFIG_DFU_MULTI_IMAGE_MAX_IMAGE_COUNT=2
#CONFIG_DFU_MULTI_IMAGE_PACKAGE_BUILD=y
#Not working, see: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/90503/ncs-2-0-custom-child-image-mcuboot-build

CONFIG_DFU_TARGET=y

This is my /child_image/mcuboot.conf:

CONFIG_MCUBOOT_BUILD_STRATEGY_FROM_SOURCE=n

# The following configurations are required to support simultaneous multi image update
CONFIG_FLASH=y
CONFIG_FPROTECT=y
CONFIG_PCD_APP=y
CONFIG_FLASH_SIMULATOR=y
CONFIG_FLASH_SIMULATOR_DOUBLE_WRITES=y
CONFIG_FLASH_SIMULATOR_STATS=n
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR=y
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR_FLASH_LAYOUT_PAGE_SIZE=4096
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR_STACK_WRITE_BUFFER_SIZE=16

CONFIG_NRF53_MULTI_IMAGE_UPDATE=y
CONFIG_UPDATEABLE_IMAGE_NUMBER=2

CONFIG_BOOT_UPGRADE_ONLY=y
CONFIG_BOOT_IMAGE_ACCESS_HOOKS=y
CONFIG_BOOT_IMAGE_ACCESS_HOOK_NRF5340=y

CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y

This is my /child_image/mcuboot.overlay:

/ {
	chosen {
		nordic,pm-ext-flash = &mx25r64;
	};
};

Help getting the simultaneous DFU working for both cores will be much appreciated!

Regards,

Tomás

[lbudde]

Hi Amanda Hsieh , we are not working with the HCI_IPC sample, but with a custom network core image (which includes B0N) -> we tried to enable all the configs that were enabled in your project, in the build/hci_ipc/zephyr/.config file related to firmware updates.

We made changes in the child image, and apparently dfu_target_mcuboot is aware of that after receiving the images, as image-0 and image-1 show upgrade scheduled

But after application core finishes updating, the network core update is never executed from the application core, and we don't see any warning or error log even after increasing verbosity.

We would like to know is this would be a typical symptom of a missing configuration enabled, for example application core not being able to comunicate with network core (we would expect some error logs if this was the case). As we don't use BLE, we don't have MBOX and PRMSG enabled, could this be related?

If you consider it useful I can send you our source/build files.

Thanks

[Amanda Hsieh]

lbudde said:

We made changes in the child image

What changes did you make? Is it possible to add "printk("build time: " __DATE__ " " __TIME__ "\n");" in your custom network core application and make a difference?

[tomas_mjp]

Hello Amanda Hsieh finally we managed to get the simultaneous DFU on both cores.

Using this patch the net_core_app_update.bin and dfu_multi_image.bin files are generated correctly and the simultaneous update works fine following the procedure I wrote in this post.

It would be really useful if the patch is applied in a future release.

[Amanda Hsieh]

Happy to know you find the patch and fix the issue.